


of unnecessarily long acronyms, persistent boys, and smiles under a porch light

by lostnfound14



Series: through the seasons [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: (she loves it), Autumn, Confessions, Cute, F/M, MJ isn't sure if she loves or hates it, general cuteness, peter is a cocky little bastard, she wears a jacket this time round
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostnfound14/pseuds/lostnfound14
Summary: “It’s twenty-two degrees,” Peter says. “Too cold for you to take the bus. Or the train. Just let me— let us take you home. Please.”His eyes meet hers, wide and begging. MJ is admittedly both charmed and flustered. He’s hit her with that look before. Hell, he used it on her earlier today when he wanted to get a bag of peanuts before the meet and she wanted to rush to the auditorium. But now, with his hair outlined by the yellow glow of nearby streetlamps and the sneaky intimacy of their uninterrupted company, MJ feels more susceptible to it. She tells herself it’s because she’s tired and just wants to go home, but she knows the real reason.“Fine,” she sighs, popping off of the wall and leaving Parker in her dust. “Let’s just go.”-But the most interesting parts of the story always happen on the girl's doorstep, don't they?
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: through the seasons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852393
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59





	of unnecessarily long acronyms, persistent boys, and smiles under a porch light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letmeputuonhold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmeputuonhold/gifts).



> It's been far too long since I wrote for this fandom (three months and change) and far too long since I have felt inspired to write for this fandom. This particular piece was inspired by a lovely comment on my autumn-themed piece: "This is so freaking adorable!! I know you legit posted this last year, but would you ever consider adding another chapter?" letmeputuonhold, this is my gift to you. Thank you for reading my story and enjoying it enough to desire _more _. I hope you (and the many others who will hopefully read this) will enjoy this. Without further ado...__

Something MJ usually prides herself on are the post-meet pep talks she always gives. Well, to be fair, “pep talk” is a loose term for it. It’s more like a “MJ-uses-the-AcaDec-team-as-a-sponge-for-her-pent-up-anger-nerves-or-excitement” talk. Flash usually tries to interrupt, speaking for the rest of the team when he says “Slow _down,_ MJ,” but she likes to talk over him. Everyone else is a bit too scared (she likes to think of them as _reverent _)__ of her to say something. 

Tonight’s MJUTADTAASFHPUANOE (reminder: never call it that again) talk is a bit more charged than the others, because Midtown only squeaked past the other school by a few points this time, instead of their usual blowout win. She’s disappointed by the team’s performance _(especially yours, Flash)_ even though she is begrudgingly glad about winning. After she’s gone on for almost ten minutes, though, everyone starts to shuffle their feet and clear their throats repeatedly, so she relents. They put on their coats, bracing for the brutal cold that awaits them, because with mid-November comes early nightfall, as well as sub-freezing temperatures.

Flash, ever the vocal one, says what everyone’s thinking when they step outside: “ _Fuck,_ it’s cold.”

“I’m sure your Maserati is going to keep you nice and toasty, Flash,” Cindy says. He sputters while everyone laughs, shocked at the fact that _Cindy_ was the one to deliver a cold barb, not MJ, for once.

“It’s a Lamborghini,” he says, half to himself, before saying, “later, losers” and near-sprinting to said car. After that, more cars roll up to the curb intermittently, carting away various members of the team, sometimes together as carpools but mostly separate. They trickle away slowly but surely.

And would you look at that, MJ and Peter are the last two left. He’s always the one to sneak up on her, almost never the other way around. Her feelings are kept to herself, but like a shark that can detect blood in one part per million, she has a feeling that something draws Peter Parker, in all of his awkward and adorable glory, to her. Or maybe she’s just a _little_ bit self-important in that aspect. What can she say, it’s nice to get his attention every once in a while. She’s happy to say that they’re friends, but lately it seems as if that label is only true when “by circumstance” is tacked onto the end. 

(They haven’t hung out that much recently. MJ misses the hours she would spend at coffee shops with the two nerds, teaching them about intersectional feminism and them in turn teaching her the wonders of Star Wars lore, which interests her quite a bit more than she wants to let on.)

That is to say, now that it’s just the two of them waiting for a ride home, Peter is the one who turns to her as they lean against the brick wall of the school building and says, “That was a really good speech you gave, MJ.”

She loses interest in her nails then, turning to hit him with a pretty tame stink-eye. It’s still enough to make him swallow nervously. “You messing with me, Parker?” she asks.

“Uh…” he frowns. “No.”

“‘Cause I usually just spitball those, and tonight was not my best performance. Coming from the person, who, you know, gave the speech.” Shit, she’s starting to ramble. Better stem that before it blows. MJ takes a deep breath and starts turning away again.

“Nah, I thought it was pretty good,” Peter shrugged. “Just a bit tough on us, you know? Betty worked _really_ hard on her calculus for tonight. I think she deserves a bit more credit.”

MJ scrunches her eyes shut. She had gotten the sense mid-speech that even though she tried to temper her frustration, it still came through in waves, making everyone frown and look a bit dejected despite their best efforts to hide it. She hates that she can have that effect on people, no matter how hard she tries to _not_ be that way. A captain is supposed to be a better mix of nurturing and pushy than MJ currently can show.

Sensing her discomfort, Peter is quick to backpedal. “I mean, I get it. You were stressed out about how close it was. Totally understandable. Just—”

MJ tries for a polite smile as she (very rudely) interrupts him. “Thanks, Parker. I appreciate it.”

Peter huffs a breathy laugh, raking a hand through his ever-perfect hair. “Sorry,” he mumbles with a shy smile on his face. “Don’t mean to undermine you or whatever.”

“You’re good,” she says simply, turning away from him and letting out a long, deep exhale marked by silky vapor in the night air.

“It’s been too long since we’ve hung out,” he says a few moments later, after letting MJ soak in the silence. “Don’t you think?”

MJ swallows, wondering how to answer that question. Whose fault is it? His? Hers? Each choice holds some truth to it. “Yeah,” is the response she chooses. Casual enough for her.

He goes silent for a bit then. MJ welcomes it, able to finally put her mind to a pressing matter she’d been able to ignore for most of the afternoon: how is she going to get home? Her mom didn’t know about the meet tonight, and it’s honestly both of their faults; MJ’s for not telling her, and her mom’s for not showing anything resembling a shred of interest in her daughter’s social and academic life. She could take public transit, but there’s something that puts her off about a bus or train ride at night. It pretty much boils down to _I’m a teenage girl traveling alone in a city with a terrifyingly high crime rate._ The only other option is…

The only other option is something she’d never consider. It’s as simple as that.

“We should go to Delmar’s sometime,” she says to get her mind off of her most recent train of thought. “All three of us,” she tacks on reflexively. _Of course all three of you. No way Parker, let alone Leeds, would voluntarily spend any time alone with you._

Peter perks up beside her. “That sounds like a great idea!” he enthuses, and MJ can’t help but smile faintly at his optimism. It’s something she missed about spending time with him: being able to brighten up the room as a perfect contrast to her gloom. “Then we could go to, like, Elmhurst Park after or something. Just hang out.”

Elmhurst was where they’d hung out that day in late October when it had just been her, Ned, Peter, and the fiery colors of early autumn. MJ flushes at the memory. 

“Right, and freeze my ass off because it’ll probably be twenty-five degrees or something?” she says sarcastically. And a bit too scathingly as well, given away by Peter’s ducking of his head and the quick shriveling of his enthusiastic smile. MJ wants to bang her head against the wall she leans on. _Ugh._

“No, that’s a good idea. I didn’t mean that,” she says, her tone self-deprecating and ashamed.

“I know,” he says, but he doesn’t sound as sunny as he did a second ago. Dammit. There she goes again, ruining people’s happiness. _Peter’s_ happiness. That specification especially stings. She doesn’t want to be the one constantly dumping a bucket of cold water on his quiet, hopeful flame, but it seems that she is staunchly stuck in her ways.

A beat-up maroon sedan rolls up in front of them, saving the moment. Peter clearly recognizes it, if the way his eyes suddenly light up and he pushes himself off the wall is any indication. It must be May. He watches the car brake to a stop, as something else clouds over his eyes. An idea, perhaps.

Peter says, “Hold on,” before he jogs to the car, like he’s about to come back.

MJ watches him lean against the passenger door and tap on the window. May rolls it down and they have a conversation that she can’t quite hear from where she’s leaned against the outer wall of the school building.

They finish talking, and MJ can hear him say, “Okay, just give me a minute.” Peter jogs back to her, that perpetual smile still stuck on his face. “Hey, MJ,” he says as he draws ever closer, then stops a few feet away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Is it okay if we give you a ride?”

MJ’s immediate first thought is, “Fuck no.” She’s not going to let his hospitable eye settle on _her,_ like it has for plenty of the other AcaDec team members. Peter freezes, his mouth opening and closing with his eyes bugging out. It’s only then that MJ realizes she said it aloud. She flushes slightly, already forming a verbal backtrack.

Peter laughs, cutting off her train of thought. “Come on, MJ.”

“No,” she says again, more insistent. “I don’t need a ride. I can take the bus home. Or just hop on the 7.” But she’s touched by his concern.

“MJ,” he says, his tone imploring now. “It’s freezing outside. It’s…” he pulls his phone out of his pocket suddenly, furiously tapping and scrolling on the screen that’s out of her line of sight.

“I don’t need your weather app to tell me it’s cold, Parker,” she interrupts with slight amusement, even as her teeth chatter. 

“It’s twenty-two degrees,” he says, sounding defeated. “Too cold for you to take the bus. Or the train. Just let me— let us take you home. Please.”

His eyes meet hers, wide and begging. MJ is admittedly both charmed and flustered. He’s hit her with that look before. Hell, he used it on her earlier today when he wanted to get a bag of peanuts before the meet and she wanted to rush to the auditorium. But now, with his hair outlined by the yellow glow of nearby streetlamps and the intimacy of their uninterrupted company, MJ feels more susceptible to it. She tells herself it’s because she’s tired and just wants to go home, but she knows the real reason.

“Fine,” she sighs, popping off of the wall and leaving Parker in her dust. “Let’s just go.”

“Thank God,” he whispers behind her. She rolls her eyes. He rushes past her to the car, making her nearly jump out of her boots. “You take shotgun,” he says, already opening the door to the backseat for himself and hopping into the car.

MJ pauses, looking at Peter through the window, who’s smiling at her encouragingly as if to say _Get in the damn car._ She laughs incredulously to herself and wrenches open the passenger door. As she leans down into the seat, May greets her cheerily. “Hey, Michelle! How are you, sweetie?” she says with a supportive smile, her big eyes shining through the lenses of her circular-frame glasses. MJ is slightly floored by May’s absolute comfort with the fact that she’s the one in the shotgun seat, not Peter. _Is this normal?_

“Um, hi, Miss Parker. I’m fine.” MJ berates herself for her halting tone. In some ways, the woman is her antithesis: warm and comfortable with any situation where MJ is cold and hesitant.

“Oh, call me May, sweetie,” May insists, waving ‘Miss Parker’ to the side with a loose hand. “You’re making me feel old.”

“Then call me MJ,” she responds, settling deeper into the seat, slouching just like she would at her desk in school. May’s easygoing nature is enough to help her shed a great deal of the awkwardness that had been smothering her at first.

“So Peter’s enlisted me to be your ride home, MJ,” May says, jerking a thumb toward the backseat, where Peter sits comfortably, wearing a Cheshire grin. MJ freezes, her mouth falling open to form words that elude her. “If that’s fine with you, of course," May adds, frowning concernedly, motherly.

MJ lays a hand on her chest to gather her nerve once more and tries for a smile. “It's fine. Thanks for offering." She hesitates before adding, "Too cold out there anyway.”

“Ugh, tell me about it,” May says, throwing her head back in exhaustion. “I had to layer up just for the walk to the car. Ridiculous.”

MJ giggles. She feels Peter’s eyes on her from behind, and she refuses to even look at him. She’s already in his aunt’s car, in the _passenger seat._ The last thing she needs is one of his irresistible smiles to throw her even further off of her game.

After that, May starts the car, and in between bouts of small talk, MJ provides directions to her address. For the most part, Peter remains silent, providing quippy little add-ons when appropriate but clearly content to listen to her and his aunt get acquainted with each other. She makes a mental note to chew his ass out for it later, but for the time being she’ll enjoy how easily conversation comes to her with May Parker.

A familiar hesitation settles over her when May brings certain topics up — the uncertainty of where it’s appropriate to speak her mind and when to remain silent — but once May brings up the recent march against police brutality in downtown Manhattan, MJ can’t help but run her mouth off about her time at the protest and her thoughts on the issue. The woman seems content to listen, humming in agreement or in intrigue at various things MJ says.

“Sorry,” MJ mumbles at one point, realizing she’s been going off for _probably_ the last five minutes. “I get… excited.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, honey. All Peter ever talks about are his LEGOs and the video games he plays with Ned. This is a breath of fresh air.”

 _“Hey!”_ Comes from the backseat, making both May and MJ cackle heartily.

For the rest of the trip, MJ quietly directs them to her house, which doesn’t take much longer to get to. When the car finally rolls up in front of it, an odd kind of shame roils her stomach. She recognizes that her house is bigger than average, and would sell for a killing on the real estate market, but she hates how everyone says “you have such a beautiful _home_.” Something about it bothers her, like an itch that she can't scratch because it's under her skin.

“I’ll walk you up,” Peter says before MJ can even push her door open. 

“Um, no need, Parker,” she says, laughing somewhat nervously as she looks over her shoulder at the boy in the backseat. “I’m pretty sure I can walk forty feet to my front door.”

Peter’s tone is pleading when he turns from MJ to his aunt. “It’s the polite thing to do, right, May?” 

The woman in the driver’s seat laughs dryly. “Oh, no,” she says. “Don’t drag me into this, Pete.”

“See? May agrees with me,” Peter says, brazenly ignoring May’s dismissal. MJ wants to scoff in surprise at his… questionable manners. “Come on, no skin off your back.”

His confidence greatly surprises (and flusters) MJ to the point that she hears herself mutter “OK” before slowly getting out of the car, defeated by his unrelenting chivalry. Her instinctive thought is _my God, boys are so annoying_ , but she, of course, in her heart of hearts, doesn’t mind it because it’s Peter Parker, the boy she’s harbored a crush on for the better part of a year.

“Sheesh,” Peter says once they’re both out of the car and going up MJ’s front walk. “It’s _freezing_.”

“You’re a jerk,” MJ says, ignoring his comment in favor of punching him in the arm. He winces a half second _after_ she punches him, which is odd. She decides not to comment on it. Maybe he’s just numb from the cold he just complained about.

“Whoa, whoa, what? Where’d that come from?” He actually sounds mildly worried (and insulted). MJ grins, though it’s probably not as cutting with her nose bright red and running like a faucet. 

“Making me talk to your aunt like that. _Uninterrupted,_ " she emphasizes with a turning of her palms to the sky in a helpless shrug. “Couldn’t even ask her ‘hey, what’s for dinner tonight’ to take some slack off of me?”

“I, for one, think you handled yourself excellently, MJ.” The steps up to the porch creak under their weight as they climb.

“Psh. Irrelevant. You’re infuriating, by the way.”

They’re standing on either side of the doorway now, bickering childishly (but MJ won’t deny that she kind of likes it). This is probably the most they’ve said to each other since… since the day Peter walked her home. 

“I’m kinda getting deja-vu,” Peter notes, as if having read her mind. 

Her eyes involuntarily widen, but she blinks and tries to school her expression. “What do you mean?” she asks, playing dumb.

“The day I walked you home. You know. Gave you my jacket, you used me as your personal space heater, and then you, uh…” _kissed me,_ he doesn’t say, though MJ can tell he barely holds back from doing so _._ “Then you gave me back my jacket and got rid of me.” 

She _hmm_ s and taps her chin thoughtfully. “I might have some recollection of that,” she replies coyly. It gets the desired effect — Peter smiles, but sighs as if exasperated.

“You _so_ remember,” he insists, crossing his arms over his chest and squinting playfully. “Now who’s being infuriating?”

MJ doesn’t say anything for a moment, then shrugs. She takes stock of the setting in the moment of silence. They’re standing under the warm porch light, sheltered from the pitch-black winter night. May is probably watching them from her car. Shit, _May_ — MJ is probably keeping her waiting too long. It’s Peter’s fault, she reasons. He’s the one drawing this out. An image comes to her mind of someone stretching a rubber band slowly between their hands until it reaches an unreasonable width, not snapping until it’s well beyond its normal extension. 

“Go on a date with me,” she blurts.

“What?” He asks, voice cracking jarringly. He looks like a deer in headlights.

“You know what, I’ll see you tomorrow, Parker,” she says, reaching for her front door and wrapping her fingers around the knob in a claw-like grip. Her face is warm, at once a blessing (in this god-awful cold) and a curse (under these embarrassing circumstances). _When you see him at school you can both pretend that nothing happened. It’ll be all nice and calm and normal—_

“Okay,” Peter says suddenly. MJ freezes, her eyes pointedly focusing on her hand that’s now welded to the doorknob.

“Okay, what?” There’s an emphatic pause between the two words as she says them, in between schooling her nerves and getting her hopes up in the same instant.

“Okay, I’ll go on a date with you,” Peter elaborates, laughing over the word _date._ “God, you gave me a heart attack the way you asked that.”

MJ’s eyes snap back to Peter, who smiles widely, letting out the tail end of a chuckle. Her mind races, various thoughts catching her focus for milliseconds only to be replaced by others. _Did that shit actually work?_ Biting her lip to hide a smile, she says, “Shut up,” the words clipped like the cut of a helicopter’s rotor through the air.

A smile takes root in his face and grows as he says, “You wanna know something?” 

“No.”

True to form, Peter plows on. “I was going to ask you that too,” he says, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left. The shy shuffle coupled with the words is enough to make her overheated, even though she knows in the back of her mind that it’s still not even thirty degrees outside. “You just beat me to it.”

Well, _that’s_ not what she expected him to say. Her heart flutters slightly. “Really?” 

His smile warps into a grin. “Mm-hmm. I gotta give you some credit.” He shrugs coolly, the gesture so unlike him — like he adopted it from someone far more confident. 

She wants to let the weight of his words wash over her, to really absorb the fact that Peter feels the same way she does, but when she starts to consider it, she gets slightly weak at the knees. Can’t have that, not now, when everything else is going so well. MJ decides to go back to what she knows best.

“It’s like you know nothing about me, Parker,” she replies, shrugging back at him. “I’m all for breaking gender norms. And that starts with _me,_ asking _you,_ on a date. Not the other way around.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks, smiling. She nods. He laughs, ducking his head. With his eyes on his shoes, he says, “I shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

“Damn right.”

Their eyes meet again as Peter lifts his head. Neither says a word, simply opting to look at each other. MJ wonders if this is a staring contest, or some kind of… mating ritual. _Blech._ The thought disgusts her so deeply that she laughs aloud before she can stop herself. Peter frowns, but only for a moment, as he laughs a bit himself immediately after.

“Let’s figure out the details later, yeah?” Peter says quietly, giving MJ a gentle punch in the arm. It’s more of a love tap, but she doesn’t like the idea of it being called such a thing. 

“Sure,” MJ says, her voice just as soft as his. They’re a bit closer than they were before. She wonders if it would be appropriate to…

Peter pauses the racing thoughts within her brain by leaning in and kissing her himself. The contact of their lips is chaste, the pressure of his mouth against hers feather-soft. His hands bracket her face, his fingers brushing against her jaw. A jolt shoots through MJ’s spine, but by some great force she keeps her feet rooted to the spot, letting out the pent-up nervous energy by clenching her hands into fists at her sides and kissing him back. His lips are slightly chapped from the cold, but so are hers. They obviously don’t mind it, slotting their lips against each other again and sighing contentedly.

When Peter pulls away, his eyes are hooded but his smile shines at a million watts. MJ’s heart bangs against her rib cage. If she puts her hand underneath her breast she’ll probably feel it going _ka-thump_ against her palm.

She exhales nervously, a puff of vapor escaping her mouth and occupying the space between Peter’s face and hers. Slowly, he draws back, continuing to smile. MJ’s lips stretch over her teeth into a smile of her own, wider than she would usually allow, but this is the happiest she’s felt in a long time, as if one of the many puzzle pieces that is part of the incomplete picture of her life has finally been slotted into the right place. When she opens the front door, it’ll only be her mother that’s home and dinner will probably be a sad, soggy sixteen-inch pizza, but at least she’ll have this moment to occupy herself with for a little while.

Peter rests a hand on her shoulder. MJ looks at it with a disinterest that conceals surprise. He squeezes slightly, and says, “See you tomorrow.” The left side of his mouth quirks upward into a half-smile. She could lose herself in that simple, momentary expression. With that, he lets go, turning to jog down the steps and the front walk.

MJ watches him walk back to May’s car, her hand still vulture-gripping the doorknob. He skips a little bit on the last few steps toward the sedan before ducking into the passenger seat. _What a fucking dork._ The car’s engine growls as May shifts the car back into drive and peels off onto the street.

“See you tomorrow,” MJ says to nobody else but the moon and stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this piece! I'm really glad to get back into this fandom. I missed writing for Peter and MJ. They were the pairing that made me want to register to AO3 in the first place, so they hold a special place in my heart. Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you leave a kudos or comment if you really liked this! Until the next :)


End file.
